


Maybe It's Magic

by haraya



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Fluff, Other, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12688176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haraya/pseuds/haraya
Summary: Anyone can do magic,he tells you.What he doesn't tell you is:But what you do to him feels like something a little bit more.





	Maybe It's Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff? In MY Arcana fic??? It's more likely than you think.
> 
> Set pre-game/pre-memory loss.

_Magic is what you do to make the outcome you desire become reality._

If that's true, Asra has been doing magic since before he could even write his own name. Magic, after all, is really just a matter of willpower.

(He might not have a family, or a fortune, or even just plain luck—but willpower? _That_ he has in spades.)

Cold, alone, and abandoned on the streets, a dirty little ragamuffin thinks: _I won't die. I'll survive._

And he does.

He fights for every scrap—whether food, cloth, or kindness—thrown his way.

_I earned this,_ he thinks, stuffing his mouth with hardened day-old bread. _I earned this,_ he thinks, fashioning a scarf from scavenged cloth to ward off the chill. _I earned this,_ he thinks, counting out coins from a pocket discreetly picked.

When he learns _magic_ -magic, it's much the same. Every charm he studies to cast successfully, every spell he burns countless herbs to get right, every fleeting glimpse of the future he gleans from hours upon hours _upon hours_ of listening to the cards, Asra thinks: _I earned this, I earned this, **I earned this.**_

(Magic is really just a matter of willpower, and Asra is a very willful person indeed.)

But when he meets you, when he—whether by accident or windfall or some kind of cosmic justice—somehow _endears_ himself to you, all Asra can think is:  _did I earn this?_

(Every smile, every touch, every kiss, every scrap of affection you deign to bestow on him—Asra questions how he earned it, if he even did at all.)

Like when he drops by your shop to see you, riding on the flimsiest of excuses, and you give him a smile that could be magic in itself.

"And what did I do to earn such a welcome?" he asks when you run out from behind the counter to envelop him in a tight hug. It's said in jest, but part of him really does wonder.

(And a smaller, more frightened-little-kid part of him fears: _if he didn't earn this, will it get taken away?)_

But you don't hesitate, don't falter—you only squeeze him tighter as your eyes twinkle with amusement.

"Nothing," you say, still smiling at him. "You were just being you."

Bewildered: "And?"

Your eyes soften. "And that's more than enough for me."

Asra's heart gives one loud thump beneath his ribcage, but if you notice, you make no comment as you lean in to kiss him.

_(Could love even be earned?_ he wonders. _Could happiness?)_

Maybe it doesn't matter.

As your fingers tug insistently at his hair to urge him closer, as his hands find themselves pulled by something like gravity to rest on your waist, as the feel of your mouth against his makes him stop caring that you're still standing at the open doorway in plain view of all Vesuvia, Asra thinks: _maybe it's **you** who's doing the magic._

Maybe he didn't earn this. Maybe he doesn't have to.

(Maybe—just maybe—you _want_ this new, bright, tentative thing between you to be _your_ reality, too.)

And if it makes you as profoundly happy as he feels in this moment, well—couldn't that only be a good thing?

Asra is a magician; _of course_ he believes in magic.

But you—you with your warm hands at the back of his neck, you with your quiet, huffing chuckle as you pull away, you with your dazzling magic and disarming smile and a glimmer of something in your eyes that could be _I love you,_  given time—

_—you make him believe in miracles._


End file.
